


Dig Two Graves

by streetsamurai



Series: A constant hum [2]
Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: (Don’t Fear) The Reaper ending, Brain Damage, Depersonalization, Dissociation, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Johnny loves V and V loves Johnny, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Suicidal Thoughts, Traumatic Brain Injury, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:41:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28327695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/streetsamurai/pseuds/streetsamurai
Summary: “Just like that? No pushback?”“Might’ve learned something from you too.”Alternative summary: V tries to like himself, finds out he loves Johnny in the process.
Relationships: Johnny Silverhand/Male V, Johnny Silverhand/V
Series: A constant hum [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2069679
Comments: 37
Kudos: 191





	1. In which V is having a hard time

4:34 a.m.

V’s head is empty. Johnny’s gun holstered at his lower back, kept in place with a belt. V never really had a proper holster, not like Jackie. Jackie got—Jackie had pride in his dual guns, and had proper holsters for ‘em, too.

But not V. V, here, has Johnny’s revolver in his pants, kept in place by a belt.

He had more. Had a rifle on him, dropped it to pick up one of the guard’s—dropped that, too. The only piece of equipment he’s still got from the start—

Yeah, you got it, V. You’ve got Johnny’s gun.

Johnny’s gone though.

V’s walking down the corridor. Crawling, more like, leaning so heavily on the wall he’s not sure he can make it outside without it. 

He’s so exhausted his body gave up on the shivers, soaked through in ice-cold water from his dive to Mikoshi.

A cold day in hell, except for V, hell’s always cold.

V fucking hates the cold.

He’s limping on both legs. His knees can’t support him—but V’s still walking the way he came in. Can’t remember it, but following the trail of bodies gets him right to the main entrance.

Alt’s still running amok, because no one shows up to stop him. No security measures pop up in his way. Just no—nothing.

So V’s a bit perplexed to see so many people at the entrance. Arasaka’s forces must have been fried, but the Max-Tac vehicles are hovering around. A bunch of Militech cars there, too.

The rest of the mob—the NCPD fighting the civilians. Lots of people. Lots of cameras, too, and those start flashing as V’s silhouette must become visible through the glass.

V considers his options and starts back to the elevator. Must be a sub-level parking with a ride he can borrow.

V’s in a car. He can’t recall his way to the parking. That space in his head is blank.

Alt’s still at something. At least that what V thinks is the reason no militia has entered the building yet.

People have gathered near the parking exit, but there isn’t much for them to see through the tinted glass.

V’s well aware of what highway hypnosis is. He’s also pretty sure what he experiences isn’t it. He drives through the city, semi-present in his head, but the road he takes is stunningly clear. He’s hyper aware of—everything. The lights too bright his optics dim them. The colored blurs left as V rides by. The neon signs. A gonk with acid yellow hair V notices for some reason, and can’t help but still _see_ in his peripherals even as V’s passed him by a full minute ago.

The pulse in his head is ticking like a clock, the sound stretched out as the time slugs around him.

V ditches the car and walks the rest of the way on auto-pilot.

The screens with the news channel in the elevator all show the main entrance to the Arasaka tower.

With a surprise V realises it’s not on fire.

The elevator dings, and V wakes from his trance enough to step out. Walks past the gym one second, and he’s passed the stairs the next. Two pulsing clicks in his head, and V’s dropping on his bed, crawling up so his feet aren’t hanging off the edge.

That’s it. He’s done. No more signals could possibly travel through his limbs. V slumps further, neck in a slightly awkward twist. He can see a corner of his window, but he’s also starting to drool on the bed.

“Pilotin’ your body like this is one hell of a dream,” Johnny says, glitching into the space next to Nibbles’ basket.

V’s mind is like quicksand. After a bit of a struggle to get back to the surface, V sinks further, but he remembers Nibbles.

He’s left Nibbles at Kerry’s. Not sure why.

“And by ‘dream’ I don’t mean... By dream I mean...” Johnny visibly sinks. “I mean like movin’ through fuckin’ molasses.”

Molasses. V imagines it should be like quicksand. He can agree.

Can’t give a grunt, though, but Johnny can read his surface-level thoughts like that.

All V’s thoughts are surface level, and he himself’s too deep to grasp at them.

He can sense the drool on his cheek.

“I don’t think I can drag you back to Viktor’s tonight,” Johnny says, sitting on the edge of the bed. It dips under his weight. “Too hot, plus, you’re in no state... But you did good, kid. You did so good.”

V doesn’t remember what was it that he did, and why it’d bring too much heat to go visit Vik. He’d love to—

Visit Vik?

He would, certainly, but that’s about it.

V’s not sure who Vik is.

All he knows is that the man sitting on his bed is watching him, and that’s warming. It makes V feel warm, being watched by him.

V lets his thoughts slide away. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> would love to hear your thoughts!  
> don’t have much of a plot planned out, this whole thing is mostly just feels for the sake of feels. maybe some medical mumbo-jumbo i’m gonna throw in later.


	2. In which the hard times are having V

Still here.

Something’s still here.

Reaching out, there’s—a thing.

The blankness lasts forever, but through it, the feeling— _him_.

The idea of a self, but that’s about it.

Lying down. Bright lights.

A presence nudges against him, not letting him slip away. He’d slip away, but that constant nudging keeps him here.

He watches a man crouch close to him. Feels—a nudge, but this time, it’s not against him, it’s against—the body.

“—There?”

The man’s mouth is moving. Has been for a while now.

His name comes easy: the man’s Johnny. He’s Johnny.

But, wait, he can’t be—Johnny’s right there and—

His world shifts, Johnny stands up and so does he.

“I’m sorry, V. You need to get to Vik’s.”

Johnny’s sorry. Vik’s.

_Why?_

A wave of emotion rolls over him. He can’t put it. Doesn’t get it.

“Shit, V. You can still see me, right? I’m right here. You here? We’ll pull through. You just... just. _Fuck_.”

V’s head in such a disarray as he wakes up, he’s not sure he’s even alive. He was seeing things without registering that. V’s not sure how long that lasted, him being awake but completely unaware. He stood up earlier but he's lying again, and it’s dark outside now, so he guesses—evening, but which one?

He tries racing through his memories, though not much comes forth. A night out drinking. Jackie’s not too bad at gambling. Yeah, maybe he went out drinking—when did he even _meet_ Jackie?

V goes through his head, stuttering at every new thing.

He’s in a bed—not at Mama Welles’s—the apartment is familiar to his eyes, but that’s about it—isn’t Jackie...

A wave of guilt crashes over him. V sits up, hugging his knees.

Jackie’s dead. V’s still alive. A knocking on the door.

Wait…

“—V, open the fuck up, I’m not calling Trauma on you! V?!”

The voice is definitely... a voice.

A flash somewhere in his peripherals alerts him of a request to enter the apartment.

So, this is V’s apartment.

Not sure why the fuck he does that, V accepts.

A man stumbles through. A man—different one—different to which one?—

“Fuck, kid.” The man kneels near the bed, but he was at the door just a second ago. He’s got a mechanical arm and holding a duffle bag, and he places the bag on the floor. Behind him is a girl, and fuck, it’s Misty, so the man’s okay.

“M-misty?” he calls. Not really making sure. But it’s nice, being able to name something. Misty’s here but Jackie’s not, and if she brought someone with her he’s okay also, now that V only needs to figure out...

There isn’t a _forgetting_ of the man. V looks at his face and sees—a face. He’s not familiar, but isn’t a stranger either.

V can’t pinpoint exactly what his issue with his memory is. He blinks.

“You here, kid?”

Yeah. No, he’s talking to himself. Himself—usually he’s talking to... the other self. “Yeah,” he says again, out loud this time, and scans the room.

“Vik and I were so worried...” Misty says and trails off right there, and V feels physically ill.

A whole concept of a person he’s known for over six months and got saved by on a regular basis just unimplodes out of nothing in his brain. _Shit_. The mechanical arm—feels like at a dentist’s—V can never feel anything...

“Vik,” V says, tasting the name. “Vik, I—you—I couldn’t—“

“It’s okay. You with me?”

V nods.

“You know what day it is?”

No. He’s got no idea. V shakes his head. “There was someone else…” he says, weakly, looking around the room like the person he’s expecting to see is hiding behind his desk or in the bathroom.

Vik and Misty exchange a glance. V doesn’t mind. He’s got little idea what thoughts they’re exchanging, exactly, but they’re friends. They’ve probably talked about this. About him.

What a weird idea, people talking about him. Just a minute ago, V wasn’t sure he even existed.

“This someone dragged you in?” Vik asks. He’s unzipping his bag, takes out a small tablet out of it. It’s got a bunch of adapters that seem thrown in together at a sweatshop, flimsy and all too many for one device. With surprise, V watches as Vik taps his wrist and asks for his personal jack.

“Yeah… he did.” V hates how his voice sounds. Weak, and reminds him of waking up after surgery, too doped up to control the words out of his mouth. “He did… I think he left me.”

A huge, deep, toxic lake blue hole appears in his chest. V gasps at the feel of it, of his chest plummeting with hurt and fear. A glitch on the left of his optics, the relic’s malfunctioning again—again?—and the man from before’s here, except V can’t even comprehend how come he couldn’t remember him a minute ago.

“Johnny,” he says, quiet, because Johnny’s right here but also because he’s still feeling too weak.

Both Vik and Misty still. Vik’s hands hover over the screen, and after a moment, he reaches his organic hand to take his shaded glasses off. “V.”

Sounds like a strict parent.

“How did it go?” Vik asks, but something in V’s screaming that it isn't the question he wants to ask. The screaming is about as loud as the one V’s having over not even knowing _what_ went.

So he’s about to blurt that out, dumbly, when Johnny finally gives voice. He’s been sitting between the pillows, an arm over his knees, comforting. Could be comforting for Johnny, but V’s all too aware of that buzzing pain in his chest. Is it even his?

“Arasaka, V,” Johnny says. “He’s askin’ about our trip to the Arasaka Headquarters.”

“Our trip?”

“Damn it, kid, _how did it go?_ Silverhand’s gone?” Vik takes his wrist, thumb near the port. Probably doesn’t realise it feels a little bit too personal. Or threatening.

“You mean Arasaka?” V asks Vik. From his reaction, yeah, that’s definitely what he’s asking about. Too bad— “I don’t really…”

There was a lot of blood. And Johnny. Johnny was with him, the whole way. Except for—Smasher. Yeah. V’s killed Adam fuckin’ Smasher with an electric katana.

He laughs. The laughter makes the insides of his lungs and his throat sting, so he spends the next few minutes coughing, covering his bedsheets and Vik’s equipment and Vik and the floor with nasty fucking blood droplets mixed with spit mixed with god knows what else. V remembers diving into the ice-cold water of Mikoshi, which is why he’s pretty confident that shit was not exactly water. Maybe an industrial coolant. Maybe that’s why he’s feeling like shit, after taking a dive in toxic shit like that.

Misty brings him a warm, wet towel, and V uses that to wipe his mouth. Clutches it in his lap.

“Talk to me,” Vik says again, and V does this time. He’s not sure what secrets he spills, because most of his memories is just knowledge that came out of nowhere, and then some imagery catches up to it.

Gives him a nasty headache. At some point V realises he’s quoting Alt’s final diagnosis word-for-word, like she’s still here, dictating it to him. For the final part, he’s all too aware of Vik and Misty staring at him, and Johnny—disappearing when V’s thoughts get to it.

Johnny leaves, and the gaping hole in V’s chest gets more acute.

“They killed me,” he repeats what he said first time waking up with the construct in his head. Feels and sounds just as defeated. “Never been so afraid.” The words flow out of his mouth like he’s in a braindance. “They killed me, Vik. They killed Johnny. I couldn’t do it.”

“Kid? Couldn’t do what?”

“I couldn’t let him die. And I—I—I am a coward, because I couldn’t let him go… Johnny.” His eyes find the spot by the window, when he saw him for the first time. “I’m so sorry.”

“So he's still in your head,” Vik sounds just as defeated. There are tracks of black eyeliner down Misty’s cheeks, and V realises he’s got hot tears on his own face, too. Vik saves him from acknowledging that, though. Clears his throat, rolls his shoulders, and continues all professional-like, as much as backalley ripperdocs act professional. “The diagnostic’s complete, though there’s that much I can tell without comparing to older logs and running more tests.”

A prompt appears in V’s vision. A request to access the stored implant data. He accepts it. Vik gets to work on the tablet again, then, after a few minutes, puts it down on the bed.

V realises Vik's been kneeling on one leg this whole time. Scoots closer to the wall. Vik takes the freed space.

Misty’s curled in V’s computer chair, making it spin in slow circles. She’s hiding half her face in her hands. The cardigan she’s wearing atop her usual jumper is—well—it’s Mama Welles’s, V’s pretty certain, and he’s glad. He’s glad.

“Okay, kid,” Vik gets his attention back, “if you’re ready, we’re gonna need to talk about this, and I’m gonna insist you pay attention, alright? As long as you can. Is the headache bad?”

“You guessed about the headache?” V's surprised the pain in his head doesn't make him topple over.

“Got this right here,” Vik taps the tablet. “No need to guess. Would be a miracle if it wasn’t splittin’ your head open… The shit’s with your brain, V. It’s bad.”

“I already knew that.”

“Judging but what you said—what Alt told you—it’s gonna get worse.”

“I guessed that.”

“The only good news is that there’s no more Johnny’s construct overwriting your own.” Vik turns the pad over so V can read the screen.

“This is just… my storage capacity.” There’re diagrams of the storages across all of V’s implants—just three plus the relic.

Vik nods, rubs his face with the organic arm. “Yup, exactly. Also this,” a tap of his fingers, another window pops up. More infographic on it, but V can barely read. He sees it’s the brain, though. “Your brain,” Vik says.

“Why are you showin’ me this?”

Vik sits in silence for a moment, looking over the brain window a little before returning to the storage screen. “Just interesting. I thought I’d see somethin'—that your personality’s no longer pinned to your brain and Johnny’s is spread across both the relic and the brain now… But I guess you can’t see that in a scan.” Vik concludes like they’re discussing joint pain caused by the weather.

V wants to laugh, but his sore throat keeps him when the single chuckle threatens to spill blood again.

“…There’s this one thing, though,” Vik continues in that same tone, though he does seem more grim, “the personal port in your brain? It’s got a pretty big memory chip, so I guess—well you see, the logs from two days ago show it had about five GBs on it, and now it’s—“

“Now it’s _what_?” V interrupts because the thought makes the bile rise in his throat. What he guesses Vik’s about to tell him is fucking bad. He's got no way out of it, so it doesn't really matter, but it's still bad. An existential dread in the pit of his stomach-like.

“Well it’s at full capacity.” Vik shows him the screen again. “Not _cut off bits of your psyche to make it fit_ full, but if Alt hit you with Soulkiller, she had to put your construct somewhere, right? Guess it’s good she put it there and not in the shard you have in,” Vik uses his mechanical hand to show on himself where V’s shard should be. “And I wonder how come she neatly packed your personality in the two terabytes it had available.”

“Two terabytes…” It’s stupid, so stupid, but he can’t believe it. Can’t believe—2 goddamn TB.

That’s where all his memories went, leaving just the knowledge of them behind, then?

“Something like that,” Johnny appears again. He’s just at the spot V stared at before, right next to the window, Nibbles’ basket at his feet. Nibbles stirs and stares straight at him. “I’m guessing she didn’t have to back your memories up like that—just left them on the old ‘ganic brain, since you and I share that now.”

“Does that mean we can take the chip out? You’re right here,” V says, meaning his organic brain. A light of hope rises in him. “If I’m on the chip now, and you’ve taken over my brain, we can just—we can—“ they can _co-exist_ , like they’ve been doing before, but it also means “—we don’t have to do anything, right? It’s all been fixed. You get the body, I get to be the—the construct, and it’s all fixed.”

Vik looks over his shoulder with something akin to fear in his eyes. Eyes the spot V’s talking to, making V realise he was talking out loud. Studies Nibbles, because the cat’s looking at Johnny, and that’s gotta creep him out, since only V should see Johnny.  
  
“The brain damage’s still there, V,” Vik says after the pause, eyeing the wall between the window and Nibbles’s basket. “I’m not… I’m not sure how it’s going to work with what Alt’s done. I have no idea. Maybe she didn’t even, didn’t even pack your construct onto the memory chip. Maybe it’s some leftover data, and your psyche’s still saved on your brain… All this is a wild guess from my part, kid. I got no idea. But what I do know,” Vik’s expression turns from solemn to professional again, and his eyes return to get glued to the tablet, “you’re still unwell. I don’t know how Alt planned on Johnny inheriting the body, there’s gotta be somethin’ we’re missin’. But—Johnny and you are still there, and we’re not getting rid of the relic because it seems to be pretty much holdin’ your brain function together.”

“You mean after the bullet?..”

“I’ll get to that. Let’s start from the beginning, so you just—you just listen, and you tell me if you don’t get somethin’, and I’ll explain it to you until you get it. That’s important. Okay, kid?”

“Yeah. Okay.”

“The symptoms that made you sick aren’t gone because the damage hasn’t been negated, even by applying Soulkiller. So, starting from the very… Passing out is dangerous when it’s uncontrollable like with you, but this isn’t my biggest concern. The biggest concern here is—it’s the seizures. There’re... many causes for them, and brain damage—which in your case should be from the bullet, not Johnny—is one. When you’re having a seizure, the areas of your brain that are fired up... well... They get damaged. The neurons die out. There’re... three core reasons for it, all pretty significant, but the one easier for you to understand is—during the seizure, the brain doesn’t get enough oxygen. So a small chunk of it dies out, every single time.”

Viktor is busy with the tablet. He shows V a model of a brain. It lights up and once the bright light is gone, a few small chunks of it stay black while the rest of the model returns to light blue. V guesses it’s the visualisation of the process Vik’s describing. He doesn’t appreciate how with every light-up, the black parts grow a bit bigger.

“There’re cases when victims of drowning that were saved never really woke up—they remained in a vegetative state because of how much area of the brain was damaged by the lack of oxygen. The brain’s starving during a seizure, too, and add that up with the other factors—there’s a risk that one of the person’s seizures is gonna kill them. Lights on, but no one’s home.

“That’s the main risk you’re running. When Johnny dragged you in, well. Here’s your brain scan—mind you, I took it when Johnny was in charge and it’d been some time since the most violent part of the episode. I suspected Johnny pilotin’ the body rewires the brain for the—less severe condition, and it was true.”

Two scans flash on the screen, one’s full of bright areas and dark areas and the other looking very much the same, just with less contrast. V’s no expert on brain scans, but Vik is, and Vik’s explanation of the events seem to make as much sense to V as it does to Vik himself.

“I don’t know how it’s possible. There’re documented cases when people, say, with dissociative personality disorder have illnesses split between personalities, like one needing insulin to survive, but while the other one’s in charge, the body shows no symptoms of that. Could be a similar thing with you and Johnny. And, well, if he’s still here... V. Did you plan on living out the rest of your days, then giving him the reins?”

V’s eyes drift off the screen to stare at the wall behind Vik. There was this thought, yeah, but it crushed after Alt told him the body is dying. If it’s dying, and what Vik said is true—which of course it fucking is—there will be no body for Johnny left, unless the relic could magically heal the fried-through brain as the new host steps in.

“Still with me, V?”

“Y-yeah,” V says, realising he’s been deep in his thoughts again. Soon he’d no longer have his thoughts. “I, uh... I know that won’t work. Had to leave him a—a functioning body behind. When I had the chance, I didn’t.” There’re no chances left, unless he learns to materialise inside Mikoshi to get access again.

In the corner of his vision, V sees Vik’s eyes meeting his own, then tracing them to where he’s staring at the wall.

“Is Johnny with us right now?”

V huffs. Johnny’s been oddly quiet, considering he usually pops up to chat. If Johnny showed up, he did that to talk: that’s the truth V’s learned, and now with him this awful quiet, it’s odd. Good that he’s here, though. V appreciates the company. He needs… he needs Johnny to be here, in his line of sight.

Probably reading his thoughts, Johnny rolls his head. V’s got no idea what that means, but he’s glad Johnny’s still with him.

“He’s here now.”

“It’s… your body. The two of you, it’s yours now.” Vik stops as if he’s said something wrong, or he’s making sure V’s not getting mad. V isn’t. It’s the truth. “Does he feel what you do? Any of the symptoms?.. I’d like to imagine a construct havin' a seizure.”

Not an odd question. It makes sense. What _doesn’t_ make sense is that Vik never asked that before, or anyone, really. “What I feel... He feels some of it, too, but it catches him hours later. Except the seizures. He doesn’t really... Johnny says he feels them later, but what he describes is completely different.” V shudders. He’d never experienced shit like that before. Passed out a few times, sure, got concussed twice. Nothing ever compared to this, though. “No pain, no this feeling of—your brain gettin’ sucked out of your skull through a straw... I think he doesn’t experience the pain caused directly by the relic, but... He does get my migraines. So I’m not sure.”

“Isn’t he here right now? Can’t he tell?”

V raises his eyes to Johnny.

Johnny meets his. He’s wearing the aviators again, but V can still feel it. Wonders if he’ll have to repeat the question for him. Wonders if—if something’s wrong between them.

“I’m feelin’ dandy,” Johnny drawls, knocking his head back against the wall. V watches as Nibbles tries to paw against his leg, and the hologram glitches up in blue as the paw touches.

“He says he’s feelin’ fine,” V says.

Vik seems to turn that over in his head, even types something into his tablet. Then, clearing his throat and straightening up: “So tell me, exactly, what did you do at Mikoshi? Besides Alt’s— _explanation_ , what were your options? You even had any? She just told you about how the whole plan’s botched and let you go?”

V’s head hurts from remembering that place. There are no images of it in his mind, almost like the memories are wiped. Yet somehow, the knowledge of what went down there is right here. V really hates it, because it feels exactly the way he imagines his personality melt into nothingness. There’s the knowledge of what once was, but the memories itself are gone. In time, he shouldn’t have it at all. Gone with the memory.

A throbbing pain sets behind his eyes. He speaks, the concepts from his mind translating badly into verbal.

“Alt offered me… infinity, I guess, live forever as a construct in the Cyberspace.”

Was it really life? An existence? His guess is—his mortal psyche can’t imagine something greater than what he has, something worth losing his sense of self.

“It’s funny. Alt even said Cyberspace is no safe place, there’s still danger... maybe she’s afraid of what it can do to her, but it didn’t occur to me—at the time, I brushed it off, and I wonder now if I would’ve existed the same, wary of death and alive, just—on this different level. And then I remember, huh, that it doesn’t even matter. I just… The warm summer evenings, when you step outside and the smell of rain is in the air, or the dust and the concrete radiating heat but the air’s cool. I have… a few memories like that, and they’re so—bright, and this sense of belonging, of having my place in this world in those few seconds… I couldn’t lose it. I can’t lose it. And if I’m dying, at least it’s in a way that doesn’t put a Blackwall between me and those moments.”

Vik sits patiently, arms folded in his lap. When it’s clear V’s lost in thought again, he says, carefully, “That... You lost me there, V. I’m afraid I don’t get it. You sayin’ Alt offered you to—digitalize yourself?”

Seems appropriate. “Something like that. She wanted me and the other constructs in Mikoshi to join her, become this... greater thing. I was thinkin' of those lucky nights. And thinkin’ that I wanna have that again. But there also was that _weight_ in me, this heavy... I wasn’t— I didn’t want to... I didn’t want any more pain.” He didn’t want to suffer, or fight, or make the decision. But he knew he couldn’t kill Johnny. He couldn’t find it in him to rip Johnny’s identity away, his sense of self, he was... Johnny got a second chance, and V couldn’t betray him like that. “She offered to take Johnny with her instead, and I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t kill him. It wouldn’t be Johnny if he went with her, same way it wasn’t Alt anymore… And I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t leave him there.

“So I just— I went towards the… the bridge there, and Johnny was gettin’ in my way. And he told me a little bit of guilt and I’m ready to give up everything. But I didn’t want to fight. And I didn’t want to give him up, and that just—my chest hurt, and I didn’t even have a body. I was just zeros and ones and still there was enough data to make it hurt so bad, Vik.

“I think I spent forever in there. Sittin’. He sat by my side. It probably was just—milliseconds in the real world, but inside there, it felt like forever. Same way he sat when I was planning to...”

“Planning to what?” Vik’s voice rough, and V tries to imagine it’s from the silence.

“Back on the rooftop… I… I didn’t wanna fight.”

The silence in the room is deafening. V regrets ever mentioning that, but now that he has, there’s no containing the words.

“I didn’t wanna fight,” he says again. “And, well, Misty and you and… that gun, and when I was thinkin’ of Rogue or someone from the clan gettin’ hurt I— I couldn’t do it. I was ready to pull the trigger, and Johnny was there, and I guess he was acceptin’ my choice. But then he said—I could die there on the rooftop, or I could die on a suicide run to Arasaka, and if I’m ready to off myself now, might as well go for it just to show these pricks. That’s what he said,” V’s eyes dart towards Johnny, and then a realisation dawns on him. But it’s a shitty dawn, like on a rainy, foggy morning. “Now I’m thinkin’ he was just usin’ that terrorist persona of his to talk me out of it,” he says, staring straight into Johnny’s eyes—or where he knows they should be under the shades. And then he can’t look anymore, because what he’s just realised leads to the next logical thing, “Guess he didn’t wanna die.

“‘S why I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t leave him behind, and I didn’t. And now I’m just… killing him, too. I’m killing Johnny same way he was killing me. The body’s rejecting me because of him, and the body’s giving up on him because I’m still here to drag it down. Vik... I don’t think I could’ve made another choice. A choice worse than this. But it’s nice. It’s nice—not bein’ alone. After all these months…”

He’s so fucking selfish for this. Can’t believe he’s called Johnny an asshole. After what he’s done to him, V’s the scummiest filth of the earth.

Johnny disappears from his vision without a word.

V’s done talking. He’s talked his throat raw, and the urge to knock back a beer is overwhelming. He’d puke after a single bottle, too, but at the moment, it feels worth it.

After a few seconds of silence, Vik asks, “Are you glad you’re not alone? Or are you glad you’re not dyin’ alone?”

V doesn’t think the difference really matters. But by the way his heart clenches at Johnny’s absence, it probably does. So—selfish, to doom Johnny with him just because V is afraid.

“Guess I should’ve taken the bullet,” he says before thinking. Taking the bullet is just another form of killing Johnny. So he doesn’t mean it, but by the grimace on Vik’s face and Misty’s intake of breath, it’s too late to take the words back.

And still the guilt eats at him. V going with Alt—that was the only right decision. He didn’t go. Now that he remembers, it starts eating him alive, same way his mind decays his own fucking brain.

Whether Vik catches those thoughts or not, he doesn’t show. His face is stern and upset, but he doesn’t say anything. Just waves a metal finger at him, making V lean back, and takes something from the tools bag.

It’s a shard, bigger than normal, so V supposes it doesn’t go under the slot behind his ear. Vik slides off the bed and scoots closer to V’s right side, softly nudging him by the temple. V turns his head left, exposing the implants on his right side.

“What’s that?” he asks, his breath catching.

“You know,” Vik drawls the words out, a familiar voice of Vector at work, “When that… Arasaka man dragged you in, positively dead, I had to cut your occipital bone open. Replaced part of the skull with chrome because I did a butcher’s job at it. So now I’m gonna give you anaesthesia, open the chrome up, install this right in behind your standard port. There’s space, unless you used it to install something since then.”

“I had… no idea,” V says, trying to imagine how exactly a new implant in his brain would operate smoothly if it was to cover up a butcher’s job. “You didn’t answer the question though.”

Vik sighs. “It’s a medical biochip. It’s designed for epileptics, should help keep the brain electric rhythms balanced. I’m not… Well… We’ll see if it helps with the seizures.”

The burning of the anaesthesia gun pierces the skin of his nape, and his right ear and a big space behind it go numb. V can still feel the touch, but the pain’s gone. He always wished those things took away the sense of touch completely.

Tinkering with V’s grey matter, Vik talks to himself, rumbling about the seizures and epilepsy and testing and how a psyche construct shouldn’t be nearly enough to cause this kind of damage, though Vik has ‘no fuckin’ clue’ on this thing in the first place. It’s only when the chip’s slotted inside and the skull’s closed up again that he addresses V. “Gonna prescribe you meds, see if they help with the episodes. Can make you feel better. Did you understand everything? About the seizures?”

“Every seizure brings me and Johnny closer to turnin’ into a Siamese vegetable, yea, I think I got it.”

Vik nods as if that wasn’t one gory fucking paraphrasing. “You’re to take them as prescribed. Also—they’re pretty heavy, and, well… I’m really wingin’ it as I go, V. We’ll see if there’s even a slight improvement. But the meds’ll only work if you’re retired, or rather the other way around, since you can’t really work when you’re takin’ them, so no more gonk business, it’s bedrest and pills for you.” As an afterthought, Vik adds, “Same reason I didn’t think I could give them to you earlier.”

“Didn’t even tell me there was the option.” It’s not a bite; V’s past that. He’s had enough of ‘invasive medication’ that offed his chances completely. Can’t even blame it, though; it’s his own fault.

“There really wasn’t. I didn’t know about the seizures until Johnny dragged you in, though I admit I should've expected that. You were bleedin’, bit your tongue so bad I had to put a stitch in it, soakin’ wet from sweat and gutter and God knows what else— I couldn’t even think about this,” touch gentle, he taps the chrome in V’s skull where he just installed the chip. “All I thought about was what’s there to make your last moments less agonising.”

“What’s different now?”

“Now? Well, you’re laying low, not in as much stress—both physical and emotional, you’re not runnin’ ‘round the city in search and creation of trouble, what else—“

“Okay, okay, Vik, I got it—“

“What I’m sayin’ is, you’re not actively tryin’ to kill yourself atop the biochip tryin’ to kill you. You see, neither the implant,” he raps his fingers against the chrome again, “nor the pills can counteract you doin’ more damage to your brain on a coupl’a flash grenades or… You get the gist. And the thing is, I’m just sayin' this because that’s what I’d be telling any other merc with your symptoms but no relic. I have no clue which part causes your symptoms. It's definitely because of the bullet you took for the seizures, but could me more to that. Everything else? The logs showed a malfunction, yes, but with no access to the construct creator’s library and keys, I wouldn’t even begin to guess what the hell half those errors in the relic log mean. We’re going after the symptoms, not the cause, V. I got no clue what the cause is.”

“There’re blueprints,” proved mostly useless, maybe because they lack what Vik mentioned, “and Alt said it’s—“

“Alt said blah, blah, V, it’s not—it’s not a sensible explanation. The body rejects you because it’s rewritten for Johnny’s DNA? Which part in the relic is responsible for reading off the saved data on the construct’s DNA? How the fuck did it even rewrite your fuckin’ DNA? What process decides if the body should reject your construct? I—I can imagine rewirin’ the brain—somehow—so that it resembles the structure of Johnny’s, his personality, memories preserved by copyin’ the exact neural pathways. But the immune system—it is rejecting what, exactly? The thoughts you get to experience in the part of the brain that hasn’t been rewritten yet? I—I don’t even know how to begin to explain how much sense this doesn’t make, kid. If Alt’s explanation is word for word what you told me, it’s not nearly enough to try and guess the hell is wrong, _exactly_ , so we can start fixin’ you up. I guess—I guess we can try suppressin’ your immune system next, see if you get better. Maybe, maybe anti-radiation treatment because the way the relic can rewrite your DNA—I can’t imagine a different algorithm than how radiation poisonin’ works... But fuck, V, that wouldn’t restore your DNA back, and radiation’s how we suppress your immune system in the first place— And we’d need to see to all of that if we’re to fix you up, V. I’m starting small, and we’ll... We should try what we can.”

The silence stretches out. A tingling sensation comes back to V’s nape, and he swallows, throat still sore. “I already know I’m dying, Vik,” he mutters, leaning on his knees. “Gonna take the meds you prescribed. But I understand it won’t help much.”

“Fuck it, Vince, I—“

V rears back from Vik at the sound of that. His back hits the wall.

Vik stills, but doesn’t stop talking. “Fuck it. I mean it. I’m stupid, I’m old, I’m more ‘ganic than a million eddie aqua-farm fish at a high cuisine orbital restaurant. What I’m sayin’ is, _I don’t know shit._ You—you’re gonna go out there, take the pills, and whether they help or not you’re gonna go lookin' for someone who knows more shit than I do. There are millions of people smarter than me, and some of them are smarter in just the right area of expertise.” Vik digs the heels of his palms and rubs his eyes. After a few seconds, he starts rummaging through his duffel, fishing out three bottles of pills. “Take these. I’m sendin’ you the instructions, take them for a week and let me know how it goes. Unless it gets worse and you know it’s from the pills or—or any other reason, so you let me know as soon as that happens, too.”

V accepts the incoming message, relays it to his phone to pin, and accepts the small bottles. As his arm reaches out, V’s eyes fall on Johnny’s tattoo.

Johnny+V, circled in a heart with an arrow.

He squeezes his free hand over it.

Funny, now, how pissed off he was, second time he saw it. First time he did, he was too much out of it, or maybe Johnny’s personality in him was slipping, and the tattoo was the best and most hilarious fucking thing. But after that, V was _livid_. Went to a ripperdoc in the market right away—the nearest one—for the first time since ever, because he didn’t and doesn’t trust anyone but Vik but he was _that mad_.

And then he sat down and chose the mod to hide the tattoo. Looking over its specs for the third time, the thing seemed so worthless to him, waste of his RAM to even operate. So V told the doc to halt, went over the catalogue again, and again all the implants that could cover or ruin the tattoo weren’t shit. V left and rode straight to Vik’s. Still had a debt on him then, and paid up, and then the hangover got to him again and he never covered the damn thing.

Doesn’t plan on covering it, now. The design’s a bit at odds with his retro trad coloured tattoos. But that makes it more precious, standing out like it does.

Yeah. V keeps it because he likes it and because Johnny chose it and because it’s made to show them, together, jokingly or not, and it feels nice.

“Still with us?” Vik waves the three bottles, putting them in V’s outstretched hand when V zones in.

“You want me to stay awhile?”

He does. He doesn’t. He wants to be alone. He wants to be with someone. Johnny’s gonna be here, so V finally says, “Nah, you… you got work… I’ll be fine.” _I already took too much your time_. He won’t say that because Vik’ll argue. “You want me to call you a cab? You? Misty?”

Misty, who’s been awfully quiet through this whole thing, looks at him from under her bangs like he’s said something offensive. V’s got enough brain access left to know it’s not about the damn cab but about what she had to hear. It doesn’t faze him, the fact that she heard the whole works, but it does feel wrong that she had to. She didn’t have to stay, but could she really leave? So she had to listen to all this—Jackie first, now V, also dying.

“It’s just around the block from here,” Vik says, looking over his shoulder at Misty. “I think we’ll manage. Unless you don't wanna be alone. Me or Misty.”

V shakes his head. "Won't be alone," he croaks.

“Take care, V. And I mean it.” Vik holds V by his left shoulder, squeezing and making him sway a little. Cold washes over V, and it’s only a second later he remembers this is the exact thing Johnny did, taking his shoulder, back when V decided to end things with a gun and then the suicide run.

“I—I’ll see you,” he chokes out the words. Won’t get his throat to make any more sounds but low whining. The itch of the cough's at the tip of his tongue again.

He’s coughed his throat bloody these past months. It’s so bad it just never stops, now, doesn’t have the time to heal. The combat inhalers made it worse. V can sneeze and there’d be blood just from that. Wonders for a moment if he should go and have Vik tinker something else in his brain to stop the coughing reflex at its core.

Would be funny, then, if V and Johnny died because V choked on food and couldn’t even cough to save himself.

He discards the thought and flickers through his OS’s windows that all notify that Vik’s tablet been disconnected, closing them and trying not to look again. His brain scan, the storage devices, old logs.

He moves further on his bed, rolls himself under the blanket and gets his face right in the corner between the mattress and the wall, his back to the apartment.

Just as the void howling in his chest becomes too much and he’s about to let it overcome him, the glitch in his optics lets him know Johnny’s back. He's got no weight on the bed, but the presence’s there, stronger than ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what can i say? i'm really into exploring the worldbuilding around the relic and how it probably acts as a brain on its own, taking on the functions of the brain that were damaged by the bullet. because that piece of uhhh whatever it's made of healing a human brain just makes NO sense, or makes about as much sense as it healing jackie's injuries, which is still zero.
> 
> hope you enjoyed this. did i go too heavy on the dialogue? i think i did. anyway, let me know what you think! happy new year, you guys.


	3. In which it’s summer and I was very hot, it’s just sweat, I swear

The next morning, V’s functional. It does take him a few minutes to realise he’s a self and a living one at that, but when it comes, so does his name.

Yeah. Ain’t dying yet.

Johnny’s gone, and just as V feels the low wave of sadness over that, he appears on his couch, legs propped on the coffee table.

“Mornin’, sunshine,” he says, but his usual vigour and drawl are gone. Curiously, he looks pretty beaten up himself.

Still says what he just did, though.

“Mornin’, Johnny,” V calls back. He’s sitting on the bed, feet on the floor, but looks like things won’t progress far from that. Can’t get up. Not now. Maybe not today.

Too bad. Gives him more time for self-digging, being stuck in the bed.

The pills from yesterday are between the covers with him. V checks Vik’s instructions before trying them. He also studies the composition with so much attention his headache starts right back up like it never quit through the night. It probably didn’t.

Still, nothing seems to have the effect the omega blockers did.

Good.

V pops the pills dry.

“Reminiscent about your partyin’ days, aren’t you?”

Sounds like a jab at his habits. At him. Like a non-playful bite. V doesn’t know what to jump to: hurt over this, or worrying over the fact Johnny actually acknowledges V’s shady shit, or the fact that Johnny’s completely ignoring the elephant in the room: they haven’t talked about Mikoshi.

“Too much thinkin’. Gonna give yourself a worse headache.”

“It’s already _worse_ ,” he starts only to get waved off by the mechanical arm.

“Nah, it’ll get worse. This is nothin’.”

“You’re just... you’re just gonna...” V fumbles for words. So many ways he can spill it out, and he can’t choose if he should at all. “You just gonna ignore what happened?”

Johnny tilts his head. “And what happened?”

V sputters, then spreads his arms wide, “ _I_ don’t know! We’re both still here. Still _dyin_ ’. _Somethin_ ’ like that?” Flops on the bed.

“Yeah, guess we are,” Johnny says. His tone’s much too cheerful for someone accepting defeat, though. “We made it, V.” The smile in his voice is unmistakable.

V sputters. “ _We made it?_ —we’re _dying_.”

“The key word here is _we._ And, c’mon, V, you’re—for someone of your smarts and skills and now the name, you can be so goddamn dense.”

V’s at a loss of words. He opens his mouth like a beached fish. 

Johnny keeps talking. “That was your decision, wasn’t it? You made it, and we’re both here because of that, so stop second-guessing yourself. You could’ve died on that rooftop. Instead, we’re here. _Together_.” Johnny’s engram jumps from his spot on the couch and appears near V’s bed. “You and me, V.”

V eases from his scandalised state to something a bit calmer and more exhausted. He can admit that. Yeah, it’s really nice. Johnny and him, here, together, both still alive. “Doesn’t really change the fact that we’re dying. Together now, yeah, Johnny, I get it. We’re  _dying_ together. That part get you so excited?”

Johnny huffs. Crosses his arms over his chest, in defense or disdain V isn’t quite sure. It’s probably both.

“The part that gets me _excited_ is the part you were so set on makin’ happen and now ignorin’ it as it stares right at you.”

V blinks. Johnny waves his hand around as if making magical gestures might get through V’s brain. No such luck. Then he stares, and after a second, “God damn, you’re serious.”

A jab at his intelligence again?— “Can you _stop_?”

“Stop what? Bein’ happy I get to be alive for a few more months? Get to annoy the fuck outta ya? It’s a delight!”

Arms wide, a sloppy smile on his face. Yeah, Johnny’s fucking with him. V’s signed the slow and painful death sentence for him and now Johnny’s taking the piss over that. “I jus’ fucken’—Johnny, I—“

V crushes his head in his hands, breathing hard. He’s not crying or hyperventilating, nothing like that. But it’s hard. Hard to breathe, hard to talk. He keeps gasping for breaths like each is a punch.

“I’m—I’m—I’m sorry, Johnny.”

It’s just him and the sound of his fucking failure for a while. Johnny’s static is still in the room, but at some point his voice makes him jump as it comes so suddenly.

“Still so fuckin’ dense,” he says before disappearing.

Oh, he’s—he’s left. V’s eyes dart around the room to try and catch a glimpse of Johnny relocating, but he’s just gone, went back under.

Yeah. He left.

For the first time in ages, V actually cries.

It’s a self-pity cry. At some point he realises he pushes more tears than actually want to come, and as he tries to cut his own crap, it actually gets worse. An uncontrollable kind of worse, as in he can’t breathe without the stuttering hiccups, and the headache makes him itch for that fucking gun.

Nibbles jumps on the bed and starts rubbing against him. V wants to slap him away and squeeze him like a teddy bear equally, so he does neither, letting the little heat radiator settle in his lap.

V’s still hiccuping when he dozes off, and when he wakes up, it’s because the pain in his head makes him go fucking blind.

Everything in his vision is put through a white filter. The contrast is _gone_ and the brightness is on max.

V scrambles blindly for the pills, recounting each of the three and realising none of them are painkillers.

Takes them anyway, or tries to. He thinks he passes out at some point, finds himself curled up, completely wet under the blanket, and the only conscious thought he has is transfixed on just making it to the window, because when he does, he can get the glass open and just get out.

Eventually, it gets better. V returns to something semi-functional, to the point that he takes off his sweaty clothes and bedsheets—desperately hoping that shit’s just his sweat—and tries searching for his phone. It just occurs to him that he hasn’t touched it in days. V finds it dead, screen cracked, in Johnny’s replica jacket.

It does work once he sets it to charge, and when the thing turns on, V regrets ever allowing any notifications.

The phone glitches like crazy as dozens of missed calls, messages, and e-mails start rolling in.

There’s one that stands out, because it comes from his Photos app. It’s for a shared fucking album. That has V so stunned he opens it first, and.

Yeah.

Makes sense.

The pictures don’t have his face on them. The Kiroshi optics didn’t let the cameras capture his likeness. But the rest of the body makes it pretty damn clear that’s him, and V’s not even thinking of the pink kicks he’s pretty sure no other merc would wear.

The leather pants, dirty and hanging around his legs with too many creases because they’re too big. Same with Johnny’s jacket, though it’s somehow fitting just right and too big at once. Even V’s stupid tattoos aren’t blurred out or anything, and he finds with relief that Johnny’s tattoo isn’t visible.

On the plus side, the pics are low quality. Someone used filters and image enhancing apps to clear up the photos, but they’re still shit.

Unfortunately, it being shit doesn’t help hide the part of the Arasaka logo in the right half of the picture. It’s plastered on the glass wall near the main entrance and pinpoints the exact location of the photo quite nicely.

It’s from when he finished his suicide run to Arasaka. If he looks closer, the clothes appear wet with Mikoshi coolant, and his short hair’s plastered to his forehead—the part of it that isn’t blurred.

V in the picture is also holding a katana, the position making it seem like he dragged it behind him.

V gets up, careful and real fucking slow, and makes it to his stash one step at a time.

The electric katana is gone.

He can’t remember taking it with him. Didn’t think of it. Didn’t make sense for him to take it—it’s big and not exactly fit for what he planned on doing.

But also the memory of defeating Smasher with the damn thing is more vivid than most.

So, yeah. A work in progress. Why’s he worried about the fucking katana, anyway? There’re more important issues here, like, for example, the entire album being just shitty pictures of him and screenshots of news articles and what looks like long-ass forum replies, V’s not sure because he doesn’t dare read the text. Always hated true crime freaks anyway.

He exits the album, noting with a pang of something in his chest that it’s been viewed by over ten thousand people. The number of views is right there under the cover.

V closes the photo app and goes to check his messages. Unsurprisingly, most are from Kerry and Panam. Surprisingly, Rogue’s texted him a bunch, too.

There’re also too many future job inquiries to even consider reading through them all. 

“How the fuck did they get my number?” he asks, finger hovering over the call back button.

“It’s Night City, kid,” Johnny materialises just like that, taking up the couch again. “It’s funny how you don’t seem to enjoy this.”

“A bunch of strangers asking me to be a gun for hire? I don’t know a single one of ‘em.”

“That’s kinda what I’d expect to get, bein’ the best merc in town,” Johnny reasons, nodding to himself. “Bunch of assholes gettin’ my number and dreamin’ I’d do shit for ‘em just because.”

“Why does it feel like you knew about this?” V asks, tilting the phone in his palm. 

Johnny shrugs, “Know how? Took us straight home from Arasaka, where’d you think I’d stop? Slide by Afterlife to get a couple shots of tequila in?”

That can’t be right. V raps his index finger against the phone case. He vividly remembers taking himself home. Not _Johnny_ driving him, no. V, himself, getting his body home.

“You were pretty out of things,” Johnny says, probably reading into V’s doubts. He also has gone rigid, speaking slow and measured, like he might have taken things too far and his words alone might light V’s fuse. “Took us for a drive, thought you won’t even notice.”

V didn’t.

“I’m sorry, V.”

That also feels wrong. “Sorry for what?”

Johnny seems to take that question seriously, “For takin’ your body for a ride again when we didn’t... I guess you were in danger, but it wasn’t completely necessary.”

That? Huh, no, but—

That’s not the issue here. No, V’s glad to know that the world wasn’t glitching out that night because how fucked up his own brain was, it’s a nice little thought, but that wasn’t his concern.

His actual concern is, “I was still present.”

Nodding once, “...Now I’m guessin’ you were.”

“You thought I’d black out again?”

“...Yeah.”

“But I was there.”

They stare at each other. 

Time turns sluggish again. Johnny raises his organic arm from his knee and reaches out, then tilts until it’s palm up, and V watches as his arm does the same, reaching out a little and straightening and then giving a small jerk in his wrist as his palm’s already up holding the phone.

A call snaps him out of it, the ringtone almost painful to his ears for a second.

Johnny fizzles out as V accepts the call.

“—Oh, you actually pick up for once!” Kerry throws his hands up, clearly angry. “Glad to see you aren’t a corpse right now, although— oh, fuck, you actually look— listen, V, what the _fuck_ happened there? This another job you took?”

V takes a few steps back to sit on his bed again. What Kerry leaves unsaid is that V could’ve done that over the Johnny biz (if they’re both talking about the Arasaka disaster), so he tells as much: it was for Johnny and him, not a job. His voice is suddenly very hoarse and he coughs to clear it, and regrets that instantly.

Kerry seems pretty unhappy, but his entire demeanor changes to perplexed as he stares at V.

“Huh... Fuckin’ cat.”

V looks at his left. Nibbles came to lean into his thigh, purring but wagging his tail. V trails a hand down his back. “Thought you’d met him when I...” V trails off as his mind goes empty.

Kerry’s voice reaches him, but it takes awhile for the meaning to follow. “Met him? Yeah, when you brought the fecker over so I’d look after him. I was real fuckin’ distressed when it up and vanished, but then I was kinda more busy with you perhaps sta _rting_ a wa _r with Arasa_ ka.”

That’s right.

Kerry’s met Nibbles when V...

“You okay there, V? The fuck’s wrong with you, you high on painkillers or somethin’?” The distress in Kerry’s voice gets to him for some reason, and V notices his heart rate spike up.

He remembers. He left Nibbles with Kerry because he didn’t come to this apartment to even sleep anymore. V forgot, that’s not a big deal.

“Sorry, thinkin’—thinkin’—thi—I just he ugh, he just found his way back. Sorry to bother you, thank you for uh, I—“

“Stop. Breathe. V. Hey, buddy, you ah, you got a ripperdoc? If you can just, tell me your address, I’ll send mine right over.”

V winces, rubbing his eyes and brow, “I’m uh, I’m fine. I’m just tired. It was hell.”

“Your nose’s bleedin’, V,” Kerry says, voice small.

V traces a finger under his nose. It comes back bloody. He also realises he’s still naked, though the camera only shows him from the torso up. A quick glance down reveals his skin’s covered in bruises and bloody skin patches, and he’s pretty sure he could see the outline of the muscle in the form of a bruise.

So it’s a good thing, the fact that Kerry only mentions the nosebleed.

“Sorry,” V says, wiping his face. “I, uh, sorry for Nibbles too, thank you for keepin’ an eye on him an—“

“I’m serious.”

The world around V halts and starts again as it pleases, and V’s. V’s confused. So he—“What?”

“I mean it, I need your address.”

“Why?”

“Because you need fuckin’ medical attention, you’re slurring and confused and you remind me of a stroke victim? Give me the _damn_ address or I’m findin’ a fixer to trace this call.”

But he’s fine. Tired to the bone and wanting nothing more than to sleep forever and Nibbles is a warm ball of smooth, soft skin against his thigh.

It’s just wrong.

V ends the call.

He climbs a bit back, wary of the damp patch of sweat on the mattress, and stares at the screen. Kerry calls again, and V lets the call ring, turning it on silent.

If Johnny’s got anything to say about it, he doesn’t let him know.


	4. In which Johnny answers a phone call

V’s lost count of the number of times he’s woken up like this. Empty apartment, no desire to check his phone, and the crippling feeling in his stomach that something’s very wrong.

Letting his mind explore inside a bit, V finds it. Finds _Johnny,_ asleep.

Johnny’s told him he doesn’t need sleep, being an engram, but does it anyway. V imagines it’s out of boredom. Sure, there might be other reasons, and it’s possible that once you no longer need to sleep, you just don’t do that anymore, but—

V can’t quite imagine that.

He’s always been that one idiot to try and sleep his troubles away, and now he’s done it to such an extent it creates trouble on its own. The insides of his head are pulsing from pain, and for once the relic isn’t the thing responsible. He’s slept so much he gave himself a headache.

What a champ.

Still alone with his thoughts, V rolls to the other side, spotting his phone. Nah. He’s not doing that right now.

Careful of his balance, V gets up and gets to work. Deals with the mess of his bedsheets, and the dirty clothes, and the things Nibbles’s thrown around.

“Gotta be thankful you know how to use the toilet,” V tells the cat after picking up his shirt off the floor. It’s dusty and smells of old sweat and covered in dark stains—blood.

The action of reaching to the ground feels like he’s tipping his own body to pour all blood into his head, so V decides that’s about that of house chores that he’s about to do.

Does pick fresher clothes and spends a lot of time in the shower. V’s not been counting, or even paying attention to his HUD, but the smallest trickle in his insulation is telling enough. He’s been standing under that spray long enough for his cyberware water resistance to give a little.

Just as the worry for Johnny still not having joined him settles in, the man glitches out of thin air, sways a bit before choosing to sit on the couch.

V sighs.  “That your favorite spot?”

He would’ve thought Johnny’s ignoring him if Johnny weren’t actively looking around that corner of the apartment. “Uh, not sure,” he finally says.

Perplexed, V just stares, thinking of what else to say before it dawns on him: he’s standing in front of the man, same way as yesterday, stark fucking naked.

“Thinkin’ this might be your favorite spot, actually,” Johnny says just as V’s wrapping a towel around his waist.

V’s about to sigh in relief—after all, that’s nice of Johnny to drop the subject—when Johnny chuckles. “What, finally decide you’d stop flashin’ me?”

V’s face starts burning. “Fuck, I—sorry, okay, I wasn’t—“

“Sheesh. Jus’ fuckin’ with ya, kid.”

“Not helping.” He’s had troubles with it from the start. Just using the damn restroom was a challenge to the point V’s actually dehydrated himself on purpose for a few days, ridiculous as that shit fucking was. It’s funny how things’ve turned to the point that it takes some brain clicking before V realises he should be feeling self-conscious. Should he?

Answering his question—V wants to tell him to get out of his damn thought process—Johnny huffs. “You do know I can’t actually see you? Not the way you see me.”

V’s mind jumps to the few instances of Johnny moving shit around or staring at things out of V’s field of view. Like that time in Pacifica. Johnny seemed to be enjoying the view while V was slumped on the floor after being nearly zeroed.

He’s certain he’d had this question before, but it always got swept away—by Johnny almost flatlining him, and then by the hunt, and the jobs, and the friendly bickering, so V never actually thought about it. “I always just assumed... What you said. That you see me same as I do,” he starts carefully, picks the bottle of water off the coffee table. Feels Johnny’s eyes on him. “Get it now that it doesn’t make any sense, I mean, how would you...”

“Unless a pair of optics’re hoverin’ in the air, yeah, exactly,” Johnny says. “Surprised it took you so long.”

“Means you see through my eyes, always? Why’d you walk around all the time?”

“Not exactly,” Johnny says and, as if proving the point that he can’t sit still even if he’s not fucking corporeal and not capable of sitting in the first place, gets up to pace. “Never told you that, and, ah, well it’s not much and never thought it’d be worth mentionin’, I just—“

“What’s gotten into you? Just tell me.”

“Nothin’. Nothin’, it’s not much, and if you compare...” Johnny throws his head back in frustration. “Anyway, hijacked a bit of your RAM first thing, so what you see, I’m seeing, but I have direct access to those memories and can view them as if I’m lookin’ at the actual thing. Didn’t realise I was even doin’ that at first.”

“What, thought I’d get mad you’re pulling my memory without me knowing?”

“Huh? Yeah, I guess, but it takes so little it’s stupid, comparin’ to what I was doin’ besides that...”

V drinks the rest of his water. It helps with his head. He should invest into buying it more often instead of the synth beverages.

“C’mon, V. Gonna be silent?”

“Just thinkin’.”

“Ennie for your thoughts, then, you know I can’t actually read ‘em.”

V raises a brow. 

“...Not when you’re zoned out the way you are, it’s like the thoughts don’t even exist. Like I said before, braindead. Anyway, what’s with the staring?”

“I guess I just realised,” V says. “Why you were so happy before.” Braindead. Johnny’s used the only right word, at the exactly right time. Maybe there’s something to it—the connection they have, or like Judy mentioned, just _knowing_ what the other said or thought. “When we came back from Mikoshi?”

Johnny laughs, his body displaying excited energy that V guesses has nowhere to go. “And why’s that? Tell me,” Johnny says, still smiling. “Not like I told you right then and there.”

“Yeah, you did,” V agrees. _We’ve made it. Together._ “Guess it took me this long to actually realise the relic’s not wiping me off anymore.”

Johnny looks like he wants to tease him for that but decides against it, gives a thumbs up instead. “Yup. Glad we’re on the same page, finally. Now what? You gonna call Kerry back, tell him to call off his hounds? Surprised he didn’t get Rogue knocking down our door yet.”

_Shit_. “Shit’s slipped my mind. _Fuck_.” Even now that call seems unreal, and V’s shoved it far away. “You think he’d actually do it? Gonna call in a fixer to track me?” V asks, picking his phone. It’s a grim thought if only because that means _anyone_ can get a fixer to track him down.

V’s grown up in the streets, he knows the dangers of his job for simply not being a complete idiot, but it’s a bit of a reality check, the fact that someone might pay for finding him.

His finger hovers over Kerry’s number again, and V’s just about to holobuzz when something else from yesterday nudges at his anxiety. V realises, apart from the headache, the crippling void in his body’s been just that—he’s anxious over shit he wasn’t even remembering properly.

“Hey, about yesterday...” he starts. “You know, since this was one of the episodes and I, I uh... You was closer to controllin’ my body so you could pro’lly feel it an’...”

“Just spill it already.”

V tries to, but the sentence gets stuck in his head. He has to force it out, but it just won’t come. He’s not sure if it’s embarrassment or a consequence of having his brain fried by the relic, but whatever it is, shit doesn’t help with the bad habit of beating around the bush. “So did I like... did I...”

“Did you what.” Johnny’s awfully tolerant of his bullshit, and V hopes this continues. His face keeps burning hot. 

“Didifuckenpissmyself.”

“What?” Johnny asks, face dumbfounded, but processes the words in a moment. “Sheesh, kid. We’ve all been there.”

V’s struck enough he remembers to breathe. “Wait, we have?”

“Uh, not really, but in my life of drinkin’ and gettin’ high you get pretty used to dudes pissing themselves and all.”

Ah. “So you ever...”

“...Not really.”

Ok, V was really hoping he had Johnny on his side here. “Fuck. I’m—“ sorry? What’s he sorry for? For pissing himself or for being embarrassed or for having Johnny as a witness? Fuck.

“Fuck, V, quit with that bull.” Johnny materialises a lit cigarette. “You were havin’ a seizure. It’s not like you got any control over that. Oh, and I’ll give you one better, you are havin’ a seizure right now.”

“Wha—n—no I’m not!”

“‘I—I-I—uh, I—’,’ Johnny says, pitching his voice to sound like him. “Trippin’ over words, confusing ‘em. You get the picture. Spacin’ out. Kid, you’ve been standin’ in that spot for fifteen minutes.”

Just as the words leave Johnny’s mouth, V’s suddenly aware of how heavily he’s been leaning on the fingers of his feet. He wants to disagree, but his feet are feeling exactly like he’s been standing, unmoving, for some time.

Johnny continues. “I’m in your head, remember? I know what traumatic brain epilepsy looks like, kid. You’re not the first person I know who got shot in the head.”

“First one to survive,” V mutters, eyes falling back to the screen of his phone.

“Actually, no,” Johnny says, leaving the butt of his cigarette in the air before getting another. “But you’re the one I’m stickin’ with. Call Kerry, tell him to calm his tits.”

Cringing at the choice of words, V dials the number, then cringes again and cancels. Texts him instead.

_ Hey, Ker _

_ Sorry for worryin you _

_ I’m okay rn _

_ Please tell me you didn’t get a fixer to find me or _

Before V can send the second message, a read marker appears under his first. 

_ Fuck, V, you scared me _

_ Don’t tell me you’re okay, I’m not stupid _

_ But I might’ve contacted Rogue already _

_ Good for you tho, we’re getting you a really nice ripper _

_ got mine _

V types that out of his own stupidity. Maybe he just can’t accept the fact that Kerry thinks he’s sick enough to need outside help, even though that’s the exact fucking thing he needs. Fuck, his own fucking brain, out to kill him in more ways than one.

_ Ok? _

_ I don’t care? _

_ Dragging you if I have to._

_ Oh and Rogue didn’t know where you lived but your nomad friends seemed to have a clue _

Fuck.

_ You did NOT _

_ What was I supposed to do?? _

_ I thought you were on your deathbed _

_ Uh, please tell me you’re actually friends and not uh _

_ Then again why would Rogue give me the contacts unless you were so _

_ What’d they tell you? _

_ Panam doesn’t know my address _

_ Oh, I loved Panam _

_ Pretty sure her wording was along the lines of knocking down every megabuilding until she found yours _

Well, at least V should be glad his payments were secure enough no one found the records of his rent transfers. 

A call with Panam would be as intense as a dance with a rogue metal gear, so he sends her a quick text,

_ im alive _

_ pls dont level my building _

_ or any other building_

And stops from sending her the number of the exact one for his own safety. Panam calls him right away. 

Sighing, V stretches on his back , gripping the phone on his chest and waiting for the ringing to stop. 

“I’d answer that,” Johnny says. V squints at him. Johnny’s got an old, weathered guitar now, but no sounds come out of it yet as he’s tinkering with the strings. 

“She’s gonna yell at me.”

Johnny scoffs. “And? If that were Rogue, I’d answer that. You should too. The both of them, I swear, your girl hates Rogue but they both know they’re just the same—“

“ _Not_ my input,” V says, “you of all people should be aware of that.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, how could I forget all your ‘puts were sadistic men that enjoyed slappin’ you around and wouldn’t bother if you dropped off the face of the earth, like now,” Johnny says, shoves the guitar away and sits with his feet on the floor, legs wide apart in his I mean business pose. “Pick up the fucking phone, V.”

The phone goes silent and starts up again. 

V wants to bite and squabble over the shit Johnny’s said, the shit V’d like to pretend the man had no idea about, but fuck, now isn’t the time. V’s paralised out of his mind at what he’d have to deal with if he answers the call.

Johnny stalks towards him, and if V didn’t know him better, he’d think Johnny meant violence. 

Instead, Johnny simply snatches his phone and puts it to his ear. “Yeah?”

V can’t hear Panam at all. With Johnny just a few feet away from him, he should be hearing at least her voice if not words, but it’s complete silence on her end instead. Still, Johnny seems to be talking to someone. 

“Wasn’t good, but not dyin’ anymore. Ah, no. Yep. Yep, I know, thank you. No, Johnny’s—“

Johnny sends him a look, and with wide eyes V shakes his head in a silent plea.

“Listen, Johnny’s still— yeah. No. I know.” He doesn’t break eye contact while talking to her, but V senses the moment he switches to their silent convo to address him, “She’s comin’ whether I tell her the address or not, so if you wanna win some time but risk her gettin’ madder than a bull...”

“Megabuilding H10, 12C008” V says. Johnny’s lips don’t move, and he’s still the one holding the phone with the dynamic too far away for Panam to hear V say the address properly—

“Yeah, I’ll see you here. Please don’t bring Mitch wi—Okay. Yeah.” Johnny hangs up and plops the phone on V’s stomach.

“So, that just happened,” V says. 

“Don’t wanna do that again,” Johnny tells him in a quiet voice that drips with cold and something else. That something gets V near the usual hurting spot close to his heart. 

“Well maybe you wouldn’t fuckin’ have to if you didn’t try ‘n’ make me—“

The look of _fury_ on Johnny’s face shuts him up. “You still think me a ragin’ fucking asshole, do you? I wanna help you, Panam wants to help you, and I’m not about to give you a therapy session on facin’ your fears and social anxiety that leaves you fucken’ unable to answer the phone.” He’s panting as he speaks. “But consider this: I don’t want to fuckin’ pilot you around like a mecha, so maybe next time...”

“Maybe next time _don’t fuckin’ try to make me do shit I don’t want_.”

“Yeah, I’d fucken’ love that, V,” Johnny says bitterly, “except sometimes the shit you _don’t_ want is to _live_ , so maybe stop pullin' _that_.”

“Pullin’ _what?_ Panam’s not gonna kill me for not ans—“

“ _Panam_ and her gang of techies that travel across the entire continent might be the best damn thing that’s happened to you besides me, and it so happens that both me and _Panam_ want you fuckin’ alive, output or not, so do be a sweetheart, accept the help,” Johnny says, kicking V’s foot with his knee, gently but with something a bit mean behind it. Johnny’s got that weird fucking way of pronouncing Pa-N _a_ m that reminds V of the sound of _Vietnam_ from old war movies, and makes him wonder, since the movies are as old as Johnny—

But still. “So you’re helpin’ first, yellin’ at me later kinda guy,” he says. He was fuming just a moment before, but that’s passed with Johnny bumping him with his knee. “Guess I got a type.”

“The fuck you’re talkin’ about?”

“Both my input _and_ output yellin’ at me when they’re worried?” V sits up, crossing his legs.

Johnny’s still standing right in front of him. He seems to think for a moment, face serious as he shakes his head. “We both know that ain’t your type,” he says, “but maybe it’s a part of it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok but hear me out: this whole fic isn't going to take place in v's apartment. we're gonna visit other apartments and maybe even a camp! but really i find it funny how the pacing works for me in this story, i really enjoy writing like this.  
> anyway, thank you for reading!


	5. In which Johnny buys V a milkshake first

After getting dressed, V finds himself on the couch, zoning out to the sound of the news channels spitting their usual nonsense. Every mention of the Arasaka tower or the felon responsible for the attack and destruction—the info on Alt seems to not be common knowledge—snaps him out of it, but only long enough to choke down on the ball of nerves in his throat before going back under.

It looks like it was Dino who added V to the shared album of pics and videos and articles from that day. The album is available from most platforms, including a basic version accessible from a personal cyberdeck. There’re even moderators to it, now, as more and more info keeps flowing in.

There aren’t any pictures of his face yet. It’s impossible to make one without V’s consent, thanks to the Kiroshi optics, but.

But.

There are close-ups of his tattoos, and there are close-ups of photos of him from before, and someone’s pinned the old school bracelets on the felon’s wrists to the tattoos of the dude in that crucifixion braindance.

V’s face isn’t blurred out in the braindance. He’d never faced the camera while filming it, though. Still, with each hour true crime freaks are getting closer to his identity. Shouldn’t take too much brains and time to find out it’s one of the Afterlife mercs who’s caused all that noise, and after that. 

Well.

V isn’t sure what the fuck would come after that.

“Should be packing my shit,” he tells the empty room and does nothing.

Someone’s calling again.

Someone’s been calling this whole time.

“‘M gonna be sick,” he says again. Nibbles leaps from his lap, sensing something’s up. V doesn’t make it to the bathroom, pukes all over an old t-shirt lying on the floor instead. It’s mostly bile that comes out, bile and water he’s had thirty minutes ago.

If Panam’s coming from the Badlands, she won’t be here for another hour.

V crouches on the floor, careful with the ruined shirt. Leans on his elbow. The nausea doesn’t pass for a long ass time, so long V starts getting fucking worried.

He’s dizzy. So dizzy it’s a challenge to try and sit up straight when he finally feels he can swallow without puking his guts out again. Fuck. Fuck.

The body’s a fucking mess.

“Should call your girl again.” Johnny fizzles into existence on the couch—the exact spot V just abandoned.

“Why.”

“Ask her to get takeout. My vote’s for Thai.”

The thought of food makes him even sicker. “You... doin’ this on purpose or what?” V says, leaning on one hand over the shirt again. Still too wobbly to try and get to the bathroom.

“Doin’ what on purpose? I mean, you’re sick because whatever, but she won’t be here for a while yet, and you won’t be sick forever...”

“Keep talkin’ about food and we can test that theory.”

“...But you haven’t got a bite to eat since before our meeting with Hanako,” Johnny says, nonchalant, as V’s world pretty much spins out of his understanding.

Because that’s. That’s true. “I...” He hasn’t gotten anything to eat in— “How long has it been?”

“Oof,” Johnny says, swinging his feet off the couch and making a show of counting on his fingers. “Okay, so, your dinner date with River...”

“Please don’t call it that.”

“Then Arasaka called you back in the morning, so you had a peck the night before, and then nothing at Embers, then a full day after Mikoshi, and now it’s been three days of you chillin’ at home.”

V blanks.

“So we have a few bites of whatever River cooked and you didn’t eat anything for two days before that, and then _that_ got negated by you getting fuck-drunk and hungover, so we have nothing for a week. Gotta admit, I’m surprised you haven’t toppled over yet, and also let’s keep this between you and me, because if Vik knew, I’m sure he’d rip me out of your brain faster than Alt could fry the guards at Mikoshi.”

“Ah, fuck, don’t make me laugh,” V says, trying to stifle it down as his throat does not appreciate anything of the sort. No humour, no food, no vomiting allowed. “Yeah, Johnny. I think you’re right.”

“Oh? Then please, tell her you want Thai.”

“No, I mean Vik’s part.”

Johnny’s shoulders droop a little, but his sad mood doesn’t last long. “Doesn’t stop Panam from gettin’ us Thai. C’mon, I’ll even call her for you.”

“You’re like a cat sometimes,” V says because he can’t help it. “Also, it’s pretty fuckin’ funny you’re actually keeping tabs on my eating habits... countin’ and shit.”

Johnny sighs, shakes his head like a disappointed father. “V, need I remind you something?”

“...Okay.”

“I’m fuckin’ starvin’ here, too.”

V’s turn for a long-suffering sigh. The worst of his dizziness has passed, so he sits on his ass, wipes his lips with the shirt. “You know, even thinkin’ about somethin’ solid makes me gag. A milkshake or the like... now that’d be nice.”

“Fuck, V,” Johnny grins from ear to ear, “you string that entire sentence together on purpose or what? I— yeah, anyway, okay, I won’t torture you seein’ as you look like a prisoner of war already. Okay, let’s get a plan then.”

“Johnny, please...”

“No, I mean it. If I’m not gettin’ Thai, I’m gettin’ a plan in, it’s your choice.”

Well, V doesn’t have much of a choice. He waves his hand. “Let’s hear it.”

“I’m sure there’s a kids menu at the Afterlife,” Johnny says, only half-joking.

“Your plan’s to get me fed?” V asks, incredulous.

“My _plan_ ’s to get you healthy and livin’ a long, happy life,” Johnny explains. “I’d start with Rogue.”

“You’d _always_ start with Rogue.”

“True, that. What can I say? We both get shit done.” Johnny chuckles. “Besides, like I mentioned, would get some food in you while we talk biz.”

“What biz, exactly?”

“Tell you on the way.”

V frowns, checking his notifications and the door. “Eh, I’m sure Panam won’t be here another—“

A few knocks on the door that might as well be someone trying to kick it down.

“V! Open up!”

Damn. He’d be scared if he hadn’t recognised that voice.

“I had another seizure or something? I swear it’s been like ten minutes—“ he starts, but Johnny’s gone.

Fuck, yeah, great, leave me alone, you prick.

V scoops himself off the floor and walks towards the door, leaning on the wall. Yeah, exactly like back at Mikoshi, he remembers that moment a bit more clearly now.

The door opens. V curses, jumping back and kicking the shirt into the pile of dirty clothes just as Panam scans the room and, without missing a beat, goes flying towards him, putting nearly all her weight as she bear-hugs him.

Naturally, they go down as V’s knees give out under their combined weight, and for months to come he’d swear that the indignant squeak was Nibbles getting scared, not him.

“ _Fuck! Fuck_ , V, I’m so sorry,” Panam says in her moment of vulnerability, pulling him up.

V’s pretty sure she wanted to slap him next, which would definitely send him down again, and is grateful to his ghastly appearance for once.

“You scared the _shit_ out of me.” Panam fists clench and unclench as she speaks, as she’s clearly holding back from minor physical violence. “How fuckin’ could you?”

“Could _what?_ Listen, I’m sorry,” _what the fuck is he sorry for?_ , “but it’s not like I had a choice—“

“ _Had a choice!_ He says, _had a choice!_ Sorry, last time I checked committing suicide was as much of a choice as—“ her voice’s shaking so bad it makes V truly, physically ill, his short unwellness episode a few minutes ago nothing in comparison. “ _You had me_. Had the whole fucking family—I had to push Mitch out my damn car and then he tried to follow me here,” she says like she’s biting. “I don’t know why I didn’t let him, God knows he wouldn’t take pity and punch you already, as you fuckin’ deserve for that stunt.”

V’s glaring at his desktop, new notifications popping on the screen every now and then.

“God damn _Arasaka_ , V? _Why?_ Now’s your face plastered all over— I’m surprised no one’s showed up here—“

V’s openly surprised at that himself. And yet, “Didn’t have much choice.”

“What? What the fuck’s that supposed to mean, _didn’t have much choice?_ Your phone stopped workin’—oh, don’t even start, of course it has, I’ve been trying to reach you for a fuckin’ week! You couldn’t fuckin’ call? Fucking tell me what’s goin’ on? Last time I saw you, you couldn’t _stand_ on your own and then you’re off the radar _completely_ for a week and the next thing I know—“

V watches her pace around his small apartment. She picks up small knick-knacks, turns them in her hands frantically before placing them down, and each time, it looks like she’s relying on sheer will to not hurl them at the wall or V.

To take his mind and racing heart off that, V turns his attention back to the desktop, now with Johnny occupying the chair. He’s spinning in it, Nibbles watching him mesmerized, and as Johnny notices V watching, he mouths something V’s absolutely sure is, _Should’ve asked her to get Thai._

That bit breaks him into a laugh. 

In retrospect, it wasn’t worth it. Now sporting a small red bruise on his cheek and a bump on the back of his head—he did fall when Panam slapped him—V watches the city, completely altered by the blue vertical glitches in his optics, out of Panam’s Thorton’s window. If he were to describe it to someone without showing the virtu, it’d be a neon acid rain eating at the city skyline and his brain.

At least Panam has somewhat calmed down, if anyone could call her twitchy, guilty, angry silence calm. She seems to want to say something every other second and bites her tongue just as often. V has to wonder if she’s bit through it on accident already.

He feels bad. She probably feels worse. To make up for it, they’ve agreed to go to Afterlife and then straight back to the Aldecaldos.

V’s got no idea how the fuck would the Aldecaldos help with his condition, but if that makes Panam feel better, so be it.

Emmerick stares V down with round optics, and for a moment, V’s not sure if the bouncer might think he’s seeing a ghost or a living fucking legend. That last bit is ridiculous, V thinks, but as soon as he steps into the club, it stops seeming so out of reach.

Every sound but the music hushes, and all eyes turn to him.

As if on cue, his left knee buckles, and V catches himself on Panam’s shoulder.

“Glad to see you’re alive,” Rogue says instead of greeting when they get to her booth.

It’s a tense but mindless chatter between them, Rogue clearly not sure what to think or even ask. Then again, she doesn’t even know the whole thing was V and Johnny’s final plan out of their predicament, and she doesn’t know it failed. Something’s keeping her from chewing V’s brain out for the stunt and all the attention it brought on V and herself as his contact, so clearly she has a guess.

“Want me to be honest?” V says, biting through his teeth. At her nod, “Don’t feel much alive. In fact, I— _f-fuckin_ ’—that whole fuckin’ thing was so I’d, I... Fuck... I dunno. I was supposed to go in, deal with thi— _my problem_ ,” he hisses as the waves of glitching in his vision translate to waving brain freeze of the malfunction. “Was all for nothin’.” 

Except maybe he’s saved countless constructs, imprisoned at Mikoshi, but his mind’s too full and too rotten to focus on something alien like that. Human psyches, stolen and frozen in time. Fuck, that wasn’t his fight—until Johnny, he guesses.

“I don’t follow you, V,” Rogue says. Her face’s pinched with worry, and V does a double take because he won’t believe it otherwise. Rogue’s worried. For him? Or is it over Johnny?”

“Alt’s idea,” he starts at the beginning. No reason to make this painfully long, though. “Was supposed to separate my psyche from Johnny, take the relic out so it’d stop erasing me.”

“And? From what I’m seeing...”

“Yeah. Didn’t work. My body’s too damaged for me to stay in it. And she wanted Johnny to have it really badly, the way it looked like.”

At the words, Johnny appears in his line of vision. As always, _as fucking always_ , V’s eyes are glued to him—he can’t, or won’t, look anywhere else, and Rogue looks at the exact spot Johnny’s occupying as V struggles to take his eyes off him.

V feels the silent suspicion, and he can’t help it. Can’t help his phrasing, and can’t help the pain in his chest. “That’s what it sounded like. I don’t care what she really meant, or if she was makin’ it seem like it was the best and only option.” V trusts, no, knows for a fact Johnny’s had no way to communicate with her without his knowledge. Johnny hasn’t planned a secret coup to take over V’s body—that’s something V believes with his whole damn heart and soul, whatever’s remaining of both.

And from the way the features of Johnny’s face relax, and his whole flamboyant pose now, sitting on the table, Johnny knows that. Can read it off V’s damaged mind like he’d read a scripture off a shard in his brain.

“I take it Johnny’s still here,” Rogue says warily, her eyes running from V to the spot where Johnny should be and back. “Alt didn’t separate you.”

“Oh, she did,” V says. Can’t help the venom in his voice. “Fried me up with Soulkiller and put me right back. Was supposed to inject me back into my body, but... I’ve got no idea how that works. Now, me and my ripperdoc, we’re pretty sure what she did was saving my construct on my cyberdeck, because it’s suddenly gotten 2 TBs heavier overnight, so, yeah. I don’t fuckin’ know.”

Panam, who’s been silent, curses under her breath, takes a bottle of tequila and drinks straight out of it. Doesn’t tell him a word but glare.

“Johnny’s no longer wiping you off, then?”

“No.” Fuck, the way Rogue phrases that—really irks V the wrong way. Maybe it’s the right thing to do, then, to rub V wrong, make him see what he’s too blind to see. Or maybe they’re all wrong, and why wouldn’t they be? They haven’t had Johnny in their head for the longest months of their life. “No, he’s not, it’s not an issue anymore... but the damage’s done,” he says and then can’t say anything more as the lump in his throat becomes too much and he can’t speak over it. Again. Not a word, barely a sound, simply—nada. V leans over the table for the bottle, takes a few gulps, which help but make him wheeze from coughs.

Through the tears clouding his eyes, he can see Panam and Rogue exchanging glances, and as his coughing fit doesn’t stop, they actually start fretting together. Talking. Panam gets one of the guards to bring him water and Rogue slides it over to him with a few paper towels, gesturing to her nose, putting her palm on his shoulders, and V can feel the heat coming from it through Johnny’s jacket.

Fuck, he’s an idiot, wearing the same jacket everyone following the news went nuts over... A Johnny Silverhand groupie, doing what Silverhand died doing.

Pretty sure everyone at the Afterlife would stare at him regardless of the jacket, though.

As his rusty pipes of lungs finally calm down and the constant itch on his back becomes bearable again, V grabs the water. He drinks it carefully, lets Rogue and Panam have the moment. Can’t hear them over the ringing in his ears anyway. 

As he wipes the blood under the nose, they seem to have come to a conclusion, because as soon as V nods, indicating he’s back with them, the two women stare him down like hawks.

“Got a plan, then?” Rogue asks. The implication here is that if he doesn’t, they’re gonna have one for him. V’s pretty sure they’ll come up with one either way.

“Johnny has one,” V says. Clears his throat, which does nothing to his hoarse voice. “...I think.”

Johnny nods in reassurance. “Ask Rogue what she knows or can dig up on cloning. Oh, and, not the military kind, let’s go with prostitution first.”

“ _Cloning?_ ” V asks, the surprise nearly sending him into a coughing fit again. Says it aloud, too, as both Rogue and Panam have their entire attention trained on him and the spot Johnny occupies. “Are you mad? It’s fuckin’ ridiculous, I should’ve stayed home—“

Panam’s starting to vocally protest, but V can’t hear her over Johnny’s voice both in his ears _and_ his head, “Trust me, V. See, I even wrote an album about this shit back in the day.”

“Wrote an album about _cloning_.”

“Yep, exactly. Cloning. That word or concept surprise you so much?”

“D—do you—that’s—that’s _insane_. D’you think we’d make a clone—“

“Jesus, V, can you just listen?” Johnny says, clearly annoyed with him. “Just ask her, and no, we don’t need to grow any fuckin’ clones. Fuck, V, just ask her, and, ah, fuckin’ hell.”

He fizzles out and V’s limbs start tingling for a second before things return back to how he was a second ago—not his best, but not his worst—except heavier, somehow, like he’s heavily drunk but with a clear head.

V’s body moves to the right, he leans heavily on his elbows and calls out to the guard standing near the booth, “Hey, choom, can I get a fuckin’ milkshake here? And no that synth vanilla shit, I want—dunno, just not vanilla, yeah?”

V watches like through a virtu how the guard’s face turns into an incredulous grimace before his eyes snap to Rogue and back to V. He turns and leaves, and then V’s body’s turning to the left, and his mouth moves to say, “Hello, Rogue. Panam. Talked to you on the phone. Now, the plan...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ao3 decided to crash on me just as i was posting this. h-huh...  
> anyway, thank you for reading, please let me know what you think!


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